Mobile Mesh Ad-Hoc Networking (MMAN), also referred to as packet radio and Ad-Hoc networking, has generated interest within academia during the last couple of decades. Recently, it has also been considered as a very attractive technology in creating new opportunities for both the communications industry and the mobile end users.
So far, most of the interest in Ad-Hoc networking has been from the military. Several militaries have developed battlefield applications where troops and vehicles are equipped with Ad-Hoc radios. These troops then form a communication network in the ever-changing battlefield environment. While ad-hoc applications seem to exist, they are not very common.
An early group of Ad-Hoc network has been citizen band radios, which provide efficient simple group voice communication in radio coverage area. More sophisticated voice applications operating in Ad-Hoc manner are cordless telephones. There are several standards in cordless telephony (both analog and digital). Infra red (IR) connections are widely used in remote controllers, and in peer-to-peer connections between mobile phones, PDA's and laptops. IR provides a simple and easy way to eliminate cables in very short connections.
Remote controls can also use a radio connection. Examples of this include radio “keys” that are used for cars and doors. Additionally, computer keyboards and mice can be connected via a radio connection. These are typically based on proprietary radios for each application. Bluetooth (BT) radio connection has been developed specially for mobile devices to connect to their short-range environment (mobile phones to laptops, headsets to mobile phones etc.) The BT radio is used mainly for single hop connections, and the BT devices form automatically a master-slave type of pico network. BT networks can be multi-layered so that a slave station may operate as a master for other slaves. Communication happens mainly between master and slave. Communication between two slaves happens via common master. BT is a practical way to eliminate cable connection in in-house connections. It is also more robust connection compared to Infra red connection and allows better mobility. Bluetooth is a standardized way to be used in applications, which earlier have used proprietary radios.
Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) also operates in an Ad-Hoc manner basically with single hop connections. Typical construction consists of WLAN Access Point (connected to network) and WLAN cards in Hosts. WLAN supports also peer-to-peer communication mainly for file transfer directly between hosts.
While some examples of Ad-Hoc networking are here now, the application of an ad-hoc network is not seamless. Ad-hoc networking is not as easy to use as any PC, PDA or mobile phone a user typically employs. Additionally, the services available in an Ad-hoc network are not similar to the services a user typically has in other networks controlled by an operator.
What is needed is a solution of how ad-hoc networking technology can be combined with the current and possible future network infrastructure in order to boost the service provisioning for the end user and facilitate the ubiquitous mobile computing, which will bring about a turning point in broadening the mobile applications and business.